Methodology

The Morning Enterprise Index gives each company a score from 0 to 100 per fiscal year. The same rules apply to every sector: each key figure becomes a percentile among similar companies, and the percentiles are weighted and summed.

Current version: 2. Every published score states the version it was calculated with.

Formula and weights

Each component is the average of the percentiles of its key figures. The index is the weighted average of the components.

Index = Σ (weight × component) / Σ (weight of components with data).

Peer groups and size

A company is compared with companies in the same sector, size tier and fiscal year. If the group has fewer than 10 companies, the whole sector that year is used, and the company page says so.

Revenue is converted to kroner. If revenue is missing, total assets is used. Without an exchange rate the size is unknown and the whole sector is the peer group. The thresholds can change in a new index version.

Percentiles

The percentile is the share of companies in the group with a lower value, ties counted half, scaled from 0 to 100. “Better than 72%” means the figure is higher than at 72% of the companies in the group. For debt-to-equity and volatility lower is better, and the percentile is reversed.

A percentile is relative: it can change when other companies in the group change, even if the company's own figures stay the same.

Profiles

Every ranked company gets one of four profiles from two numbers: the profitability and solidity components, both 0–100 within the same sector, size group and year. The profile is only a short name for the position and is not an assessment of the company. Companies with too little data get no profile.

High profitability: 50 or more. High solidity: 50 or more.

Profile	Position	Definition
Lion · Leader	high profitability, high solidity	Earns well and has a solid balance sheet.
Cheetah · Sprinter	high profitability, lower solidity	Earns well, with more of the business financed by debt.
Elephant · Steward	lower profitability, high solidity	Has a solid balance sheet, with lower earnings than the group.
Beaver · Builder	lower profitability, lower solidity	Has both lower earnings and a thinner balance sheet than the group.

Scenario analysis: the sector's weakest year

The scenario analysis shows how companies did in the sector's weakest year. We use the years we have accounts for, and the weakest year is the one with the lowest median operating margin in the sector. With only a few years this is not a full downturn like 2015–2016 or 2020; the analysis includes more years when history is imported.

Better than the sector: operating margin at or above the sector median and no loss or negative equity. Weaker: operating margin below the median and a loss or negative equity. Otherwise about the same as the sector.

Estimated value

Three simple methods side by side, so the spread is visible: P/E (net result × multiple), EV/EBIT (operating result × multiple, minus net debt) and P/B (book equity × multiple). The accounts have no depreciation, so EBITDA cannot be used. Net debt is long-term liabilities minus cash, because the accounts do not separate interest-bearing debt. Methods with a zero or negative input are shown as not meaningful. The multiples per sector:

Mechanical estimate from public accounts with fixed multiples. Not a valuation and not advice to buy or sell.

The multiples are provisional default values and must be adjusted per sector before the figures are used for anything.

Fixed rules

• A missing key figure is never counted as zero. It is left out, the other weights are scaled up, and data completeness shows how much of the weight had data.
• Without both profitability and solidity a company gets no score.
• Negative equity gives solidity 0.
• Without revenue, margins and growth are missing; profitability then rests on return on assets alone.
• Accounts are stored in their original currency. Ratios are not affected by currency. Growth is only calculated between years in the same currency. Amounts are converted at the annual average rate, and the rate used is shown.
• With a single year, growth and consistency are missing. Consistency needs at least two years, margin volatility at least three.
• If the size tier is too small, the whole sector is used as the peer group.
• Company age and missing accounts are shown as information and do not affect the score.
• Durability is the average of the company's index over all years it is ranked, with at least two years.
• The same figures and the same version always give the same score. Every calculation is logged with its version and data version.

Definitions

Which companies appear in search engines

Every company has a page. Only pages with revenue and equity for the latest year, that are not holding, inactive or excluded, and that are medium or large, are made available to search engines.

Version history

The municipality index

The municipality index compares municipalities on open data from Statistics Norway (SSB). It follows the same principle as the company index: each municipality is compared only with municipalities like it.

For each key figure the top and bottom 5% are clipped to the limit, so one extreme municipality does not move all the others. Each municipality then gets a percentile rank in its group (0–100, reversed where low is good). Key figures in the same part are averaged, and the parts are weighted. When a part is missing its weight is spread over the others; a municipality needs at least half of the weight to get an index.

Weights: work and business 40%, economy 35%, population and growth 25%, public contracts 0%.

The comparison group is Statistics Norway's KOSTRA group (1–17), which groups municipalities by population and financial conditions. Groups with fewer than 5 municipalities (Oslo) are compared with the whole country. The national rank is shown as well.

Municipality numbers change with mergers, splits and new counties. We use Statistics Norway's classification service (Klass) to carry figures from old numbers to today's municipality. A split (Ålesund and Haram in 2024) is not carried over, because we do not know how the figures divide.

The index does not measure the quality of schools, health or other services, nor how good it is to live in the municipality. The public contracts part (purchases from local companies) has weight 0 until Doffin data is in place, and will be a supplementary indicator with low weight: it says something about local business, not about quality.

Statistics Norway tables can change or be discontinued. Small municipalities vary more from year to year. Each key figure uses the latest year with figures for most municipalities, so not every figure is for the same year.

The figures for companies in the municipality come from our own data: limited companies in the sectors we follow, by business address. That is the registered seat, not necessarily where the activity is. Medians are shown only with at least 10 operating companies with accounts.

Indications based on open data. Not advice.

Sources

Contains data under the Norwegian Licence for Open Government Data (NLOD) made available by the Brønnøysund Register Centre. Indexes, rankings and analyses on this site are our own calculations and have not been prepared or endorsed by the Brønnøysund Register Centre.

Annual accounts from the Register of Company Accounts and company details from the Central Coordinating Register, both from the Brønnøysund Register Centre. Only company accounts are used, not group accounts.